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If the Higgs Boson carries mass, why doesn't there exist more bosons that carry other fundamental properties such as volume/distance (space), time, or even spacetime? Also if bosons carry force, but the Higgs carries mass, does that mean boson's don't necessarily carry force, or mass is a type of force?

tox123
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    What would it mean to carry volume or distance or time? These properties in general relativity are described by (but are not completely equivalent to) the metric tensor, and changes in the metric ARE carried by the hypothetical massless boson called the graviton.

    None of this has to do with the Higgs mechanism, though. The Higgs does not carry mass, but rather, interactions of particles with the Higgs give those particles an apparent mass.

     – Zo the Relativist Aug 19 '15 at 18:08
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    @Jerry I think you're a bit biased from your experience. I personally find it quite odd that a particle apparently gives all mass in the universe. So having something carry time or space isn't as outlandish as you think, from an outsiders perspective at least. – Zach466920 Aug 19 '15 at 18:17
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    @Zach466920: read what I wrote. There's a sense in which the question makes sense, and a proposed particle for it. And the Higgs doesn't give all mass in the universe. 99% of all particle mass comes from the binding energy of quarks, which has nothing to do with the Higgs mechanism, and, again, these phenomena are wholly unrelated.

    And I'm not biased by experience. I just have studied these things in detail, and distilling detailed models down to single paragraphs like the OP can often cause important distinctions to be lost.

     – Zo the Relativist Aug 19 '15 at 18:21
  • @Zach466920 if bosons carry force If this analogy is used, between what entities would space carrying bosons carry space or volume? I'm a newbie to this, so way out of my depth, but I think it's valid enough to ask. –  Aug 19 '15 at 18:23
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    @JerrySchirmer call it what you will, the fact that mass comes from individual particles, instead of being an intrinsic property is odd. You're bias precisely because you accept this as some kind of axiom untouchable by questioning. – Zach466920 Aug 19 '15 at 18:28
  • @JerrySchirmer What would it mean to carry the weak force? Other particles merely interact with these force carrying bosons, hence having a force act upon them. Furthermore to carry time or space would mean that is giving particles the illusion of time passing, or an apparent distance between two or more particles. – tox123 Aug 19 '15 at 18:28
  • @AcidJazz I don't actually believe this, but if a particle where to carry space, the gravity of an object would be proportional to the density of this hypothetical particle. For instance, at a black hole, the density would be very high, so high in fact that nothing would exist at the singularity, well except the particle. I'd assume there would be no room to fit. Once again, just a hypothetical! – Zach466920 Aug 19 '15 at 18:31
  • @Zach466920 as I say, this material is outa my league, so I will back away slowly, with just one other question, would such a hypothetical space carrying particle imply that space is discrete? Of course, you fool, is an acceptable answer:) thanks for your last reply anyway, appreciated –  Aug 19 '15 at 18:40
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    @AcidJazz let's be clear. I'm not an expert, I just read things from people who are. Having said that, IMO space would be discrete if that hypothetical particle governed space. – Zach466920 Aug 19 '15 at 18:42
  • @tox123: three particles DO carry the weak force, the two $W$ particles and the $Z$ – Zo the Relativist Aug 19 '15 at 18:45
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    @Zach466920: well, it's not a mass. It's an apparent mass caused by an interaction. And if the particles had intrinsic mass, you'd break most of particle physics. It's a non-obvious answer to a puzzle that baffled particle physicists for twenty years. Particles not having an intrisic mass is a simpler axiom than them all having them.

    If you want a weird thing, it's why all of the eparticles have different Yukawa couplings, and why there seems to be this flavor hierarchy. (for instance, why isn't the top quark lighter than the charm quark?)

     – Zo the Relativist Aug 19 '15 at 18:48
  • @JerrySchirmer yes I'm aware of this, my point is that their interactions with other particles gives the appearance of a force (the weak force), so when one says carry in this sense this is what they mean. – tox123 Aug 19 '15 at 18:50
  • @tox123: you'd still have an electroweak force without the higgs, though. It just would be a long-range force with four bosons, though. – Zo the Relativist Aug 19 '15 at 18:51
  • @JerrySchirmer I agree, but since the Higgs Boson is the force carrying particle, it does have a special place as the "god particle". Maybe it only interacts with quarks, idk, but it's weird, and needs explanation beyond flowery language and you can't do that declarations. – Zach466920 Aug 19 '15 at 18:53
  • @JerrySchirmer I understand that first part, second not so much, but its beside the point, $W$ and $Z$ bosons, carry the weak force by interacting with other particles, as the Higgs carries mass through its interactions. – tox123 Aug 19 '15 at 18:58
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    @JerrySchirmer, as ACuriousMind reminded me once, there would be electroweak confinement so, while the interaction would be longer range, it wouldn't be long range. – Alfred Centauri Aug 19 '15 at 19:03
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    @Zach466920: I can't teach you quantum field theory and work through several chapters on spontaneous symmetry breaking in a comment thread.

    tox, it's more complicated than that, but most people wouldn't call the Higgs, generically, a force-carrying particle.

     – Zo the Relativist Aug 19 '15 at 19:16
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    @JerrySchrmer So it's not the photon of gravitation? Let me guess, it's the graviton that is the photon of gravitation. My points remain the same, just change out a word or two. But seriously, if you're proficient in your field, you need not teach me advanced QFT, you should be able to present it at a level a fifth grader could understand... – Zach466920 Aug 19 '15 at 19:34

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It should be clarified that the Higgs boson does not carry mass. The correct statement is that the Higgs field (not boson) is giving mass to some (not all) particles. In fact most of your mass is not given by the Higgs field. Most of the mass of atomic nucleus (protons and neutrons) is due to the binding energy of strong interaction. The Higgs field is giving mass to quarks and leptons (like electrons).

But the Higgs boson is not needed to give particles their mass. Higgs boson is only a "ripple" in the Higgs field. You will most likely never encounter a Higgs boson in your life, but still your electrons have mass. It is because the Higgs field is everywhere (while the Higgs boson is very rare).

There is also a lot of particles that probably do not get their mass from the Higgs field. For example the particles of dark matter may be getting their mass via a completely different mechanism. And remember that there is much more dark matter than ordinary matter in the universe. The Higgs field is also not giving mass to black holes.

Also please note that there actually is something like an "interaction" mediated by the Higgs boson. It is however incredibly short range and it does not give rise to mass. It is just a very weak attraction between fermions. So the Higgs boson does carry a "force", but this force has basically nothing to do with mass.

Mass is definitely not a type of force. Mass is a parameter in the equations and it is causing that particles (which have mass term in their equations) are moving slower than the speed of light. Massless particles are always moving at the speed of light.

Now why was the whole thing with the Higgs field introduced in the first place? Cannot the mass be really just a parameter in the equations? In the early days of quantum theory it was actually like that: mass was just a parameter and there was no Higgs. But when weak interaction was put into the equations, things were not working right with mass. It was more natural for some particles to be massless. Therefore the Higgs mechanism was introduced so that these particles can be massless at the beginning, but acquire mass later when the Higgs field gets to nonzero average value (vacuum expectation value) in the universe. Some of the other quantum fields interact with this "activated" Higgs field and they get mass from that: their particles are moving slower than the speed of light, because their equations of motion have extra term that is altering their behavior.

Now it should become clear that mass is something different than spacetime. Mass can be given to particles by a quantum field, but similar mechanism would not work for spacetime. Mass term appears as part of the equations describing motion of particles, but there is no "spacetime term". The equations contain derivatives with respect to the space and time, but these are just labels.

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mpv
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  • If you replaced Higgs boson with photon, or theorized graviton, how would this argument fair? You spend only a sentence on the main point under consideration. – Zach466920 Aug 19 '15 at 22:10
  • @Zach466920 In what sense would you like to replace Higgs with a photon? Photons carry electromagnetic interaction, while Higgs carries that weak short range attraction force. Photon field does not give mass to anything, because it is zero on average in space (Higgs field gives mass because it is nonzero on average in space). – mpv Aug 20 '15 at 11:10
  • Exactly, the key point is that the photon carries the electromagnetic force, and that a graviton discovery would be desirable. Your argument corrects a misnomer but doesn't address what happens when there are particles that do indeed carry fundamentals of the universe. – Zach466920 Aug 20 '15 at 13:22